1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat pipe used for heat conduction and a method and apparatus for manufacturing an elemental or original pipe of the heat pipe.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in order to manufacture a heat pipe, a wick such as a metal gauze is attached through an open end portion from the outside to an inner wall of an elemental heat pipe formed into a hollow shape.
However, this method is cumbersome; it is difficult to uniformly attach the wick to the entire inner wall surface; it is not easy to check whether or not the wick is correctly attached; it is difficult to attach a wick to the inner wall of a corrugated pipe due to its corrugated surface shape, which results in deterioration of heat characteristics; and more specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, gap K is present between diameter D of inner crest portion and diameter d of inner root portion, thus causing deterioration of the heat characteristics. (In FIG. 1, a cross-hatched portion indicates a wick).
In this invention, a wick layer is attached and fixed to one surface of a metal tape without forming a gap with the metal surface, and thereafter, the tape is rolled so that the surface having the wick layer serves as an inner surface, thus forming a pipe shape, then the pipe wall is corrugated.